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62 d Congress 
2d Session 


FT MEADE 

GenColl SENATE 


Document 
No. 402 


PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE 
CONSTITUTION 


AN ARTICLE 


PREPARED BY 


GAILLARD HUNT 


n 


AND 


PUBLISHED IN “THE NATION ” OF 
DECEMBER 28, 1911 



PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE 
March 11, 1912. — Ordered to be printed 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1912 


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PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


In an article in the North American Review for August, 1907, in a 
memorial presented to Congress in May, 1908, and printed by its 
order, in His recent book, The Origin and Growth of the American 
Constitution, and in several newspaper communications, Mr. Hannis 
Taylor has announced the discovery that Pelatiah Webster, a pam¬ 
phleteer of the Revolutionary period, was the true designer or archi¬ 
tect of the Constitution of the United States, having previously pro¬ 
posed the convention which constructed it. The claim must be 
treated seriously because of the importance of the subject and because 
Congress has given it currency by publishing it. 

In the North American Review article Mr. Taylor says: 

He [Webster] it was who first proposed in a public way the calling of the convention 
in which the present Constitution was made. 

Again: 

It is beyond question that Pelatiah Webster, in his financial essay of 1781, made the 
first public call for a convention to create an adequate system of federal government. 

In the memorial he adds: 

Having thus taken the first step, he set himself to work to formulate in advance 
such an adequate system as the convention should adopt whenever it might meet. 

The u adequate system” was formulated in a pamphlet issued in 
i 1783, which derives much of its force, according to Mr. Taylor, from 
the pamphlet of 1781, which paved the way for it. 

I. 

Mr. Taylor’s authority for stating that Webster proposed a Con¬ 
tinental convention in 1781 is the following paragraph by James 
Madison in his sketch of the origin of the convention, first printed 
in 1840 as an introduction to the Madison Papers, edited by Henry 
D. Gilpin: 

In a pamphlet published in May, 81, at the seat of Congs. Pelatiah Webster, an able 
tho .not conspicuous Citizen, after discussing the fiscal system of the U. States, and 
suggesting among other remedial provisions including [a] national Bank, remarks that 
‘ ‘the Authority of Congs. at present is very inadequate to the performance of their 
duties; and this indicates the necessity of their calling a Continental Convention for 
the express purpose of ascertaining, defining, enlarging, and limiting, the duties <fc 
powers of their Constitution.” 

Madison further states, in the same sketch, that on April 1, 1783, 
in Congress, Alexander Hamilton said he wished to see a general con¬ 
vention called and would make a motion for that purpose in view 
of the recommendation of the New York Legislature; and Madison 
cites as his authority the Life of Schuyler in Longacre (Madison’s 
Writings, Hunt, Ed. II, 401, 402). The citation is incorrect, however, 
the action of the New York Legislature being given in the sketch of 
Hamilton in Longacre (National Portrait Gallery, Yol. II). 



4 


PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


So is his statement of the authorship of the pamphlet of 1781 incor¬ 
rect, for it was written by William Barton, and not by Pelatiali 
Webster. The title is, “ Observations on the Nature and Use of 
Paper Credit/’ and it was “printed and sold by Thomas Aitken, at 
Pope’s Head, three doors above the Coffee House.” All libraries 
which have it attribute it to Barton, and it appears under his name 
in Hildebrun’s Issues of the Philadelphia Press, 1685-1784. Our 
interest, however, is not in knowing who wrote it, but who did not 
write it, and the proof that Pelatiah Webster was not the author is 
overwhelming. It is written in a flowing, scholarly style, and every 
principle advanced is supported by quotations from contemporaneous 
economic authorities, whereas Webster never quotes, and his simple, 
homely diction shows in every line the practical and shrewd mind 
of a man who studies his subject untrammeled by books. Webster 
reprinted most of his papers in 1791 and did not include this one 
among them. His essays are on kindred subjects; they follow one 
another in orderly array, and they refer to one another. That he 
should have written this essay and not spoken of it in some other 
essay is highly improbable. Moreover, he did not agree with the 
main proposition advanced in the pamphlet. It urged the estab¬ 
lishment of a national bank, the funds to be raised by a lottery, to 
be immediately governed by 50 men chosen by Congress and to be 
controlled by a committee composed of one member named by each 
State. One searches in vain for an allusion to such a scheme in 
Webster’s essays. In only one does lie discuss banks—that of 
February 10, 1786, on “Credit; in which the Doctrine of Banks is 
Considered.” Here he says a State or national bank “would tend 
immediately and directly to tyranny in the Government, because it 
would give the minister or ruler the command of a vast sum of money,” 
and suggests that a State and private bank might be combined. 
His ideas do not remotely resemble those set forth in the pamphlet 
of 1781. It can be asserted with positiveness that no unbiased mind 
can read Webster’s pamphlets and this pamphlet without being cer¬ 
tain that Webster did not write it. Madison’s sketch in which the 
error of attributing the pamphlet to Webster occurred was written by 
him in extreme old age, and was not one of the papers which he pre¬ 
pared for posthumous publication. It is an exceedingly rough 
draft, was never revised, and was indorsed by him, “a sketch never 
finished nor applied.” (Writings, II, 391.) He remembered only in 
a general way the subjects on which Webster had written, more than 
50 yearn had passed, and, finding the pamphlet on Paper Credit in 
his collection, he erroneously attributed it to Webster. 

It is not so easy to understand how Mr. Taylor followed this error 
and used it as part of the foundation on which he builds his panegyric 
of Webster. In his article in the North American Review and in his 
memorial he quotes, from George Bancroft’s History of the Consti¬ 
tution, the remarks on Webster’s pamphlet of 1783, which loccur 
on page 86 of Volume I; but he ignores Bancroft’s remarks on 4he 
pampidet of 1781 made on page 23 of the same volume, where 
Bancroft says: 

in a pamphlet dated the 24th [of May, 1781] and dedicated to the Congress of the 
United States of America and to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, William Barton 
insisted [and so forth, as in Madison’s quotation]. 


PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


5 


In a footnote on the same page Bancroft adds: 

Not by Pelatiah Webster, as stated by Madison. * * * First, at a later period 
Webster collected his pamphlets in a volume, and this one is not among them, a dis¬ 
claimer which under the curcumstances is conclusive. Secondly, the style of this 
pamphlet of 1781 is totally unlike the style of those collected by Pelatiah Webster. 
My friend, F. D. Stone, of Philadelphia, was good enough to communicate to me the 
bill for printing the pamphlet. It was made out against William Barton and paid 
by him. Further, Barton from time to time wrote pamphlets, of which, on a careful 
comparison, the style, language, and forms of expression are found to correspond to 
this pamphlet published in 1781. Without doubt it was written by William Barton. 

Mr. Taylor does not completely ignore this statement in his book, 
however. Here he welds the pamphlets of 1781 and 1783 together 
more strongly than ever, so that when one falls the other must have 
a precarious standing, and in a note (p. 27) dismisses Bancroft thus: 

No attention should be paid to Bancroft’s vain attempt to discredit Madison’s state¬ 
ment. (History of the Constitution, I, 24, Note 3.) Apart from Madison’s great 
accuracy and Bancroft’s well-known inaccuracy stands the fact that the call of 1781 
was a natural part of Pelatiah Webster’s initiative as now understood. Madison 
was on the ground and knew the facts; Bancroft’s inference is based on flimsy hearsay 
nearly a century after the event. Bancroft never grasped the importance of Webster’s 
work. 

The logic of this remark is that the pamphlet of 1781 must have been 
written by Webster, in order to sustain the theory of long premedi¬ 
tation for the pamphlet of 1783. Mr. Taylor will find it hard, how¬ 
ever, to make any one agree with him in thinking that a circumstan¬ 
tial averment like Bancroft’s can properly be dismissed as an infer¬ 
ence based on hearsay. 

II. 

After the primacy claimed for him in calling for a convention, it 
is in order to examine the weakened claim that Webster designed 
the plan which the convention adopted, but space limitations make 
it necessary to deal with only two or three points. They are, how¬ 
ever, the strongest that can be brought forward for the claim. The 
pamphlet in which the plan was given to the world is entitled “A 
Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the Thirteen 
United States of North America.” It was first published in 1783 and 
reprinted in Webster’s collective pamphlets in 1791. It contains only 
two features which also appear in the Constitution—the power of 
Federal taxation and the bicameral legislature—and there were no 
two principles of government better understood in the States at the 
time Webster wrote than these. The one had been discussed in and 
out of Congress for years; the other was an accepted policy in the 
States from the time of the Declaration of Independence. Lack of . 
Federal power to tax without State intermediation was universally 
recognized as the great cause of the inefficienc 3 r of the confederation. 
As Madison said: 

But the radical infirmity of the Articles of Confederation was the dependence of • 
Congress on the voluntary and simultaneous compliance with its requisitions by so 
many independent communities, each consulting more or less its particular interests 
and convenience and distrusting the compliance of the others. (Writings, II, 395.) 

On February 3, 1781, Congress asked the States to vest power in it 
to levy a duty of 5 per cent on imports. On the same day the'resolu¬ 
tion was printed as a broadside and passed on to the street. 


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PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


The taxing power was much debated in the convention of 1787, 
and, finally, emerged with restrictions. There were half a dozen 
members of the convention who had been Members of the Congress ol 
1781, and nearly all the Members had been in other Congresses, where 
the subject of Federal taxation had been discussed before and after 
Webster wrote. 

A bicameral legislature was proposed in the Virginia plan, presented 
to the convention as soon as it had a quorum, and two days later 
agreed to without dissent, except from Pennsylvania, which was the 
only State that did not have a legislature of two chambers. ' Edmund 
Randolph explained to the convention on May 31 that the object was 
to guard against “the turbulence and follies of democracy. On 
June 7, John Dickinson said he wished the Senate to bear as strong 
a likeness as possible to the British House of Lords. We need look 
no further for the convention’s reasons in agreeing at once to a legisla¬ 
ture of two chambers. 

IV, 

Webster deliberately omitted from his plan recommendation of a 
Federal judiciary, and So far as we can judge from his writings had 
no conception of such a one as the Constitution provided for. Here 
it is my duty to call attention to a carelessness of quotation and state¬ 
ment on Mr. Taylor’s part of so grave a character that it has given an 
entirely incorrect idea of Webster’s meaning. In his North American 
Review article he gives what purports to be a connected quotation 
of a passage from Webster’s pamphlet, but a sentence has been inter¬ 
jected in it from a different part of the pamphlet, a vital word has been 
changed in the most important sentence and from this sentence a 
qualifying clause has been omitted. The Review article does not, of 
course, print Webster’s pamphlet, which the reader would have to 
consult to detect these errors and the pamphlet was not then readily 
accessible. Following is the passage as quoted in the Review, italics 
indicating the misleading portions: 

These ministers [of state] will of course have the best information and most perfect 
knowledge of the state of the Nation as far as it relates to their several departments 
and will, of course, be able to give the best information to Congress in what manner 
any bill proposed will affect the public interest in their several departments, which 
will nearly comprehend the whole. The Financier manages the whole subject of 
revenues, and expenditures; the Secretary of State takes knowledge of the general 
policy and internal government; the Minister of War presides in the whole business 
of war and defense; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs regards the whole state of the 
Nation as it stands related to or connected with all foreign powers. To these I should 
add judges of law and chancery. I would further propose that the aforesaid great ministers 
of state shall compose a council of state , to whose number Congress may add three others, 
viz, one from New England , one from the Middle States, and one from the Southern States, 
one of which is to be appointed President by Congress. (Vol. 185, p. 820.) 

There is nothing here to indicate what is the fact, that after the 
sentence describing the duties of the ministers, a whole paragraph 
.about the Secretary of State has been omitted; but that is not impor¬ 
tant. The sentence about judges of law and chancery has been 
changed by substituting the word “should” for “would” and by 
leaving off half of the original sentence, and the sentence which fol¬ 
lows had nothing to do with this part of the argument, but has been 
inserted from a different part of the pamphlet. 


PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


7 


What Webster really said, after speaking of the ministers, was 
(italics marking the variation from the passage given by Mr. Taylor): 

To these [i. e., the ministers of state] I would add judges of law and chancery; but 
I fear they will not be very soon appointed—the one supposes the existence of law , and the 
other of equity—and when we shall be altogether convinced of the absolute necessity of the 
real and effectual existence of both these we shall probably appoint proper heads to preside 
in those departments; I would therefore propose , 

3. That when any bill shall pass the second reading in the House in which it originates , 
and before it shall be finally enacted , copies of it shall be sent to each of the said ministers 
of state , in being at the time , who shall give said House in writing the fullest information 
in their power, etc. (Edition of 1791, p. 214.) 

Seven pages further on in the pamphlet, as the sixth of his main 
propositions, occurs the sentence about the ministers of state, “I 
would further propose that the aforesaid great ministers,’’ etc. The 
plain truth is that Mr. Taylor has made Webster propose a Federal 
judiciary when he did not do so. 


V. 

In his memorial which precedes the reprint of the pamphlet, and in 
his book, Mr. Taylor treats this part of Webster’s plan somewhat 
differently but hardly less recklessly. There lie connects Webster’s 
statement that “the supreme authority” should be vested with power 
to decide controversies between States with the “judges of law and 
chancery,” and finds the entire judicial system distinctly outlined 
(p. 18 of the memorial); but Webster’s “supreme authority” was 
nothing but Congress, and he meant to continue in it the authority 
which it already had with reference to controversies between States. 
He gave it similar authority when he provided that anyone who 
should disobey the “supreme authority.” should be “summoned and 
compelled to appear before Congress.” 

YI. 

Not onlv did Webster have’no discernible part in framing the Con¬ 
stitution, but he did not understand it after it was framed. His own 
pbtn had kept all power in Congress, as it was under the old Govern¬ 
ment, and he did not grasp the fact that coordinate and coequal 
branches had been erected beside Congress. He seems to have 
thought that the President was a third house. In his essay, pub¬ 
lished October 12, 1787, in reply to the address against the Constitu¬ 
tion issued by 16 members of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, he says: 

2. Their next objection is against a legislature consistinq of three branches. This is so 
far from an objection that I consider it an advantage. The most weighty and impor¬ 
tant affairs of the Union must be transacted in Congress; the most essential counsels 
must be there decided, which must all go thro ’ three several discussions in three different 
chambers. * * * At any rate I think it very plain that our chance of a right deci¬ 
sion in a Congress of three branches is much greater than in one of a single chamber. 
(Edition of 1791, pp. 404, 405.) 

An impartial reading of his essay, The Weakness of Brutus Ex¬ 
posed, published November 4, 1787, and on the Seat of Federal 
Government, published September 21, 1789, shows that he had not 
yet shaken off the habit of thinking of the Federal Government as 
simply and solely Congress. 


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PELATIAH WEBSTER AND THE CONSTITUTION. 


I disclaim any wish to detract from the merit of Pelatiah Webster, 
who was a sound thinker and a patriotic man. Undoubtedly, by his 
essays onfinancial subjects, he influenced his time in favor of a stronger 
central government. Probably his essay on the Federal Union had 
a general influence in the same direction, although few of the propo¬ 
sitions he advanced found a place in the Constitution and none because 
he had made them, and his plan, as a whole, was completely ignored. 

Gaillard Hunt. 

Washington, D. C. 


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